Inside Asian Gaming

May 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 35 Wonder 4 allows players to select one or more of four base games in any combination or all four at once. behind the “Wizard of Oz” game on Facebook, and is working with Aristocrat as an exclusive third party. Spooky Cool’s chief executive, Joe Kaminkow, who built a reputation at IGT as one of the most influential designers of slot machines in history (think Wheel of Fortune, Ghostbusters and Sex and the City), joined Aristocrat earlier this year as senior vice president of Game Development. Scott Olive, one of the founders of Hyperlink, is also on board under an arrangement similar to Mr Marks’. “To deliver the world’s greatest gaming content, we need the world’s greatest game development talent,” Jamie Odell, chief executive of Aristocrat Leisure, says. “Joe knows how to combine maths, art and brands to make great games that delight players and drive revenues for our customers.” On Demand™, a downloadable solution for changing out game content with the touch of button (its first dual-language titles will be exhibited at the show) is a platform that should prove ideally suited to his talents. Then there’s Wonder 4™, a “game changer,” as Aristocrat likes to pun, an entirely unique take on the multi-game concept that allows players to select one or more of four base games in any combination or all four at once. They can play a 5 Dragons and three 50 Lions™ or two 50 Lions and two Wicked Winnings™ or four 50 Dragons and so on. It’s a multi-game within a multi-game, actually, featuring an innovative drag-and-drop technology by which the player moves the titles from the menu onto any of the reel sets. Choices include two Reel Power scatter-pay games and an Xtra Reel Power™ game in addition to the standard pay-line game. A bonus-packed “Super Feature,” triggered when the symbols line up on reels 1, 2 and 3, gets four games going at once at heady max bets in the range of 1,600 credits. Mr Punter says to look for the impact of the triumvirate of Messrs Kaminkow, Marks and Olive to be felt increasingly over the next 12- 18 months across a range of new and existing platforms. Its ripples will spread beyond that, too, enriching what is already a prodigious store of human capital. “I think we’ve had at least three of our design studios recently come out to the region, which has never happened before,” he says, “our top games designers, whom we consider some of the top games designers in the world, out for three or four days to Singapore and Macau. The idea was to get a better understanding of what the players are doing, watching them, seeing what new games are coming, what the trends have been in the last 12 months or so.” For Aristocrat, market dominance is never the end game, it’s the point of departure. “These are the things that are very key forme and for the business,” Mr Punter says, “to keep pushing what concepts, what games, what licenses and what operators want Aristocrat to focus on to entertain their players . But in saying that, we’ve got to be on our game. Our competitors are designing more specific games for this region. That keeps us pushing. It’s definitely keeping us busy.” Visit Aristocrat at Stand #417 FEATURES “These are the things that are very key for me and for the business,” says Mr Punter, “to keep pushing what concepts, what games, what licenses we can look at. But in saying that, we’ve got to be on our game. Our competitors are designing more specific games for this region. That keeps us pushing.”